


When The City Floods Will Build Our Castle

by Amberly



Series: Just Like Heaven [4]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Gen, Guilt, Pre-Slash, Vaguely Suicidal Behavior, jokes about suicide as a coping method, offscreen minor character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 05:32:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13897320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amberly/pseuds/Amberly
Summary: Duo escapes to the Preventer's Roof, hoping his guilt won't follow. It does, but Wufei is there to chase it away again.





	When The City Floods Will Build Our Castle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GoodIdeaAtTheTime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoodIdeaAtTheTime/gifts).



> Well! Since it's my birthday on Friday and I completely failed to write anything for ChronicWhimsy's birthday--I'm catching up now. This is a two-parter, so see the notes at the bottom! This fic was in large part inspired by Meg Myer's song "Make A Shadow." 
> 
> Just a note about the warnings: Duo's not at all consciously seeking to end it all. He just did what people in crisis do: he acted. 
> 
> Anyway! I hope you enjoy this lovely short bit of angst with a happy ending. There are some subtle hints of things to come, as well as things present in later, already posted shorts. 
> 
> <3,  
> Amberly

Of course Wufei is the one to find him. 

He’s twenty five stories in the air, legs dangling over the air as he stares out into the world, wind a whistle in his hair, teasing strands out of its braid to wisp around his face. Lately the drives haven’t been enough. Lately he comes home from missions with the scent of sulphur clinging to his skin. The apartment they share is too small and too big, an article of clothing that sags and pinches in all the wrong places. Duo doesn’t know what’s changed but he knows something has and it scratches at the careful ice wrapped around his heart at night, sharp flames chipping at his resolve to keep his hand to himself. To keep his words swallowed and lodged safely in his throat where they can’t shatter the tentative something forming between them.

It should’ve been a standard op. Should’ve been a quick in and out. Their intel gave them an empty building, a single sniper set up. What they got was a trained team lying in wait.

He’d taken a newbie. An agent straight out of Wufei’s class, young and fresh and frothing at the mouth to help an ex Gundam Pilot. Alice was shoulder high, her red hair close-cropped, and she kept up with Duo effortlessly, all bunching muscle and grunts as they climbed up the fire escape. She wasn't even part of the team yet. That was how it worked: first they proved themselves, then they got the invite. Only Alice wouldn’t get it, not with her brains scattered against a window, all that promise ruined by a lucky shot. Nevermind that it left Duo alone--he’d been alone before. He’d been alone his whole life, outnumbered and fighting the odds.

The therapy was supposed to make it better. He wasn’t supposed to still feel like this. Hollowed out, weary shoulders bowed under a curse he’d been told didn’t exist. Couldn’t. It was why he’s started therapy in the first place. That and ‘Ro, his insistence that it would help grating at Duo’s ears until all he could do was give in. So far, he’d had eight sessions. Eight hours of his life spent reliving things he wouldn't even mention drunk, shame and guilt souring his stomach until all he could swallow was water. Eight hours and still, here he was. Perched on the edge of a skyscraper, staring into oblivion as he let the wind tear at his hair and clothes, beating away the numbness Alice’s death had brought.

“Duo.” It was soft, Wufei’s voice right behind him. If he turned his head he could see him. Could look right into that inky black concern and drown in it instead, which was wrong. No matter what Dr. Eliot said about reaching out to his friends. Wufei was his friend, but Wufei also hovered on that edge of something more, and Duo was more terrified of that than he was the gaping air below his dangling feet.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“What?” That startled him. Duo blinked, turning his head to look back at Wufei, hands tightening on the concrete beneath him. His friend frowned, hunching against the wind and he surveyed the scene. Ran his eyes over Duo in search of--something. Whatever he saw made him relax, just a little. Just enough for a glimmer of humor to enter his eyes. 

“You don’t have a jacket on. The wind out here is terrible.” Wufei’s lips quirked. He made his way over to Duo and slowly eased himself down, their shoulders brushing. It was like they’d done this hundreds of time: sat on top of the Prevener’s office, gazing down into the city without a care in the world. The familiarity made his mouth dry. Duo slipped his hands from their hold, settling them in his lap. He reached for his braid, stilling it and holding it tightly, heedful of Wufei’s closeness. Breathing. That was a skill he’d been taught before, for war. Something his therapist suggested he try now, for peace, and Duo let it happen. Let the steady rhythm of Wufei’s chest rising and falling set his own. It was a different kind of peace. Less numb and more--something else. He couldn’t name it.

“I’m not going to jump,” Duo declared, looking sideways at Wufei as he interrupted their silence. There was a smile in return, Wufei’s gaze fixed straight ahead, looking out at the sky, the mountains breaking the horizon in the distance.

“Of course you’re not,” Wufei agreed, nudging his foot with his own. “You love these boots.”

It was an absurd answer. Ludicrous, even, especially with Wufei sitting there, drawn up and stiff and proper in a way that let Duo know was faked. Was a suit of clothes he put on for the reaction. There was no one else who would do this. Who could do it, sit down next to Duo and dismiss his dramatics with a scoff and a roll of his eyes. The knot in his chest loosened as he smiled, leaning back against the cement. Duo folded his arms under his head, looking up at the gleaming sky and counting the spaces where their breaths matched.

The ache was still there. He’d lead a girl to her death and no amount of Wufei’s subtle humor could change that. But it was distant now. A faint thrum instead of an insistent pounding, and Duo could go to therapy. Tomorrow. He could go to therapy tomorrow and let Dr. Eliot explain all of the ways he couldn’t blame himself for this, holding his hurt against his chest until he was ready to let it go.

“Do you ever think about moving out of the city?” Wufei looked down at him, fathomless black eyes catching the setting sun, lighting them up with golds and browns he’d never noticed before. Duo swallowed hard, nodding.

“Yeah. The city is...loud. Sometimes.”

“It is,” Wufei agreed. He looked back out at the lit sprawl beneath them, evening traffic a steady whir. Duo sat up, their shoulders pressed together as he looked too. Searched, he realized, Wufei’s eyes roaming restlessly over the landscape. The pilot was looking for something. Suddenly, he pointed. “There. That’s where we should move.”

“Wufei... “ Duo started. “That’s just...that’s just trees.”

“Exactly. Just trees. No people, no buildings. No cars. It would be very peaceful.”

“Oh...Yeah. I guess you’re right.” He shot Wufei a crooked smile. “It would be out of the city. You could design you own house, too. That would be cool.” Wufei’s smile was small but there as he turned, setting his feet on the firm concrete of the roof and offering his hand.

“It would. I could have a library. Put in a garden.”

“You could do whatever you wanted,” Duo pointed out as he took it, climbing to his feet as well. “You could plant things. Or put in an art room.” There was a soft chuckle, the sound heating Duo’s cheeks as their hands loosed. Leading the way to the door, Wufei looked over his shoulder at him, shooting him an easy grin.

“I could,” he agreed. “Like you said, I could do whatever I wanted.”

"So...this hypothetical house…” Duo started, following him into the Preventer’s building. “Would you need a roommate?”

“Maybe.” Wufei mused, hands sliding in to his pockets as they headed towards the elevator. “Would said roommate clean up his socks?” 

“Hey! That was one time!” Duo laughed, shoving at him. They joked the whole way down to the lobby, a cold Duo hadn’t even noticed seeping from his fingers. Wufei’s easy laughed buoyed him, chasing thoughts of Alice away and bringing light to all the shadowed places within him. 

**Author's Note:**

> There's the true Get Together fic in my drafts. I've been struggling with it, and finally last week it hit me: I'm struggling because they're not ready yet. They need more build. So! This came to me as a way to bridge that gap--which means I'm finally finishing the true Get Together now, and it'll be done by the end of the month.


End file.
